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Great Brook Ice Cream Stand expected to reopen

By Hiroko Sato, hsato@lowellsun.com

Updated:
04/18/2013 08:06:29 AM EDT

Co-owners Mark and Tamma Duffy are shown at the Great Brook Farm Ice Cream Stand in Carlisle. The stand is expected to reopen by the weekend after a septic-system dispute appears to be resolved. SUN/David H.Brow

CARLISLE -- The Great Brook Farm Ice Cream Stand hopes to open for the season as early as Saturday after the town Board of Health unanimously agreed to issue a license for the business contingent upon a satisfactory inspection.

The local board's decision put an end to the tussle between the farm and the state that forced to the popular stand to shut down last summer and delayed the opening for this season.

"I'm thrilled. I started to feel good about life," Tamma Duffy, who runs the farm and the ice-cream stand with her husband, Mark Duffy, said Wednesday when reached by The Sun over the phone.

The state Department of Conservation and Recreation shut down the stand last May over alleged permit violations stemming from an expansion of the building. State plumbing and gas inspector Scott Padden has said the ice-cream stand needed bathrooms. But the Duffys said the septic system for the building failed for many years ago and that the state, which leases the property to the Duffys, has never repaired it. The stand has also operated without bathrooms for nearly 26 years. The DCR, in return, said the failed septic was never meant for Duffy's private enterprise.

DCR officials did not return a phone message left Wednesday afternoon.

Padden recently sent a letter to the Carlisle Board of Health, saying it was up to the board to decide whether the business can operate without bathrooms.

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